'El Granada' hits new heights

THE PBA’s 38th – or 2012-13 season – formally begins this Sunday via the Annual Rookie Draft to be held at the Robinsons Midtown Mall in Manila.

Before we formally say goodbye to Season 37, let us first take a last look at the local players who topped the 2011-12 statistical categories from the statistical summary released recently by the PBA:

Scoring 25.8 Gary David, Powerade

FG shooting (at least 70 made) 57.1% Marc Pingris, B-Meg

2-point FG (at least 70 made) 57.4% Marc Pingris, B-Meg

3-point FG (at least 40 made) 41.4% Mike Cortez, Brgy. Ginebra

Free-throws (at least 70 made) 85.3% Gary David, Powerade

Rebounding 10.7 Arwind Santos, Petron Blaze

Assists 6.4 JVee Casio, Powerade

Steals 1.6 Chris Ross, Meralco

Shotblocks 1.4 Arwind Santos, Petron Blaze

Minutes Played 37.3 Gary David, Powerade

David, who finished second to Barangay Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa in the MVP race, finished No. 1 among locals in scoring for the third straight season. The last player to do that was Asi Taulava who was No. 1 in scoring among locals for four straight seasons from 2001 up to the 2004-05 season, tying Allan Caidic’s record from 1988 to 1991.

But David’s 25.8 ppg average in 49 games for the Tigers this past campaign is the highest by a local since Caidic’s 27.1 for Tivoli Milk in 1991.

David, who will be donning the Global Port Batang Pier uniform this coming season, actually led the locals in scoring in six of the last seven conferences; the only time he failed to do so in that stretch in the 2011 Governors Cup when he played just five games because of an injury. Meralco’s Sol Mercado was the scoring leader that conference.

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Santos is the only local to average a double-double this past season. He also normed 15.0 points per game for the Boosters. Understandably, he had the most double-doubles this past season among the locals with 26.

Santos, who led the locals in rebounding for the second straight season, also finished the season No. 1 in shotblocks, becoming the first player to do so in the last 13 seasons. The last player before him to lead the league in both rebounding and shotblocks was Mobiline’s 6-10 center Andy Seigle in 1998 (9.8 rpg and 1.8 bpg).

Starting in his sophomore year in 2007-08, Santos has led the locals in shotblocks every other season.

Casio is the first rookie to lead the locals in assists in a season since Talk ‘N Text’s Jimmy Alapag in 2003 (7.0 apg).

Meralco’s starting point guard Ross is also the steals leader among the locals for the second straight season.

Cortez, the No. 1 draft pick of Alaska in 2003, is the first Barangay Ginebra player to lead a season in three-point shooting since Mark Macapagal’s 43.6% average during the 2005-06 season and Jayjay Heterbrand’s 40.8% the season before.

This is the third time in the last eight seasons that Pingris went No. 1 in field-goal percentage, also achieving the feat in 2004-05 (56.9%) and 2006-07 (58.8%).

David is also No. 1 in free-throw shooting for the second time in four seasons, having first done the trick in 2008-09 while still with Burger King (85.0%).